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Video 1. 11 Things You Should NOT Do in Spain! (YouTube link)
Video 2. 11 Things You MUST DO In Spain! (YouTube link)
Video 3. 10 SPAIN CULTURE SHOCKS | Expat Life in Spain (YouTube link)
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| Figure 1. A sample restaurant receipt |
Where to find toilets?
Finding public toilets (or WC, baños, bathrooms)could be a big problem when you travel in Spain. For example, you could find no public toilets in parks (Note: I have only found it once in El Retiro Madrid or Madrid's Central Park) or underground metros. So, when I ask locals where the toilets are, here are the typical answers:
- McDonald
- There are some McDonald's whose toilets are restricted by security codes. To find the pass code, it normally is printed at the bottom part of your receipts.
- Starbucks
- Restaurants
- Coffee shops
- Hotel's lobbies
- Train stations
- However, some stations have only coin-operated toilets (e.g., Madrid - Atocha Cercanias).
- Stores
- Once in Valencia, I visited a store which charged me 1 € for using its toilet. However, the owner said that I could also purchase a bottle of water for 1 € and use their toilet too.
When to travel?
In 2019, I have visited Spain twice: once in the summer and once in the winter. In the summer, the temperature is really high (avg: 35-40 °C at Madrid). I was told that Seville had 45-50 °C in 2019.
When I visited Spain again in the Christmas season, temperature was quite mild. For example,
- Barcelona (high: 12°C, low: 6°C)
- Rained a little bit
- Valencia/Seville (high: 20°C, low: 6°C)
- Mostly sunny
- Madrid (high: 12°C, low: -2°C)
- Mostly sunny
So, my favorite travelling season in Spain is in the winter. Not only the temperature is more moderate, but also the crowd is much smaller.
As a reminder, bring your umbrella, scarf and sun glasses when you travel in the winter. Finally, the only caveat to travel in the winter is that it's also the flu season. For myself, I wore a mouth mask for protection although locals don't seem to do the same.
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| Figure 2. Halo Boutique Hotel Sevilla at Seville, Spain |
Where to eat breakfast?
In the early morning hours, eating a decent breakfast (i.e., not eating at McDonald) is challenging because most restaurants are not opened. Most Spanish people are night owls probably due to high temperature, people tend to be active in the evening. Also, siesta is still a normal practice in some regions, (note that my local tour guide said that people in Barcelona tend not to take siesta because the long commute between office and home). But, most of the restaurants do have a special open hours. For example, this Korean restaurant San Kil in Barcelona, its open hours are:
- 13:00 -15:30
- 20:00 -23:30
My own solution to eat a decent breakfast is to eat at nearby Hotel's restaurants.
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| Figure 3. Anti-theft travel bag |
How to travel safely?
It is well-known that tourist attraction locations in Spain are infested with pickpockets and thieves. Here are some tips to travel safely in Spain:
- Wear anti-theft travel belt as shown in Figure 3
- Place everything important in it. For example
- passport, wallet, money, smart phone, house keys
- Don't chat with strangers. When they approach, quickly walk away.
- Most Spanish people don't speak good English at all and they normally ignore you when you pass by.
- Only pickpockets and thieves would approach you and try to converse with you even in Spanish. These thieves almost always work in a group.
- Don't walk alone by yourself especially in a deserted area.
Here are my own experiences facing with these pickpockets and thieves:
- Lost my backpack at Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar
- On that day, I was leaving Barcelona and ready to join a tour to other cities. So, I have carried all my belongings: a carry-on luggage and a backpack. When I sat down on the last row of the church bench, I left my luggage and backpack alongside the bench. Then I started taking pictures of the church's ceilings. Not until a couple of minutes later, had I realized that my backpack was mysteriously gone.
- Here is my observation on that day. When I approached the church, there was an old guy walking along me, however, he acted a little bit weird by nervously looking up and down. When I sat down on the church bench, he also sat next to me on the left. However, my luggage and backpack were on my right. This old guy appears to be a "distractor" of the gang. The distractor's single purpose is to distract you and let his partners steal without your notice. After I lost my backpack, I had noticed an old lady dressed in a long robe sitting in front of the church on a stool. Her character fits very well with what I have viewed on the Youtube. The reason for them to wear long robe is that they can easily grab your bag and hide it in between legs and walk away skillfully without people knowing they actually carry something stolen in between their legs.
- Harassed by a couple at Sabatini Gardens in Madrid
- At an deserted location, a couple hailed me for my attention. They seem to tell me that there were something dirty on my clothes. Initially, I thought it might be birds' poos they were referring to. So, I stopped to check. At this time, this couple reached me and showed me where the dirty stuffs were on my clothes. Surely enough, I saw green liquids spread on my backpack. They kindly offered help of cleaning the liquid with their provided toilet papers. However, the story didn't end there. Then suddenly the liquid mysteriously appeared all over my body: on my pants, my jacket, and my backpack. So, they keep on helping me with cleaning them. The girl worked on my right side and the boy worked on the opposite side (my left-hand). This is when they raised my suspicion especially when this boy placed his hands close to my anti-theft travel bag. At that moment, they decided to walk away and threw some more toilet papers for me to clean up.
- Here is my observation for that day. This couple are pickpockets and worked in tandems. They have spread the green liquids onto my clothes maybe out of their sleeves. Also, they pretended to help me with cleaning them with toilet papers. There are two things that were suspicious:
- How come they happened to have lots of toilet paper with them
- The green liquid spread to me became more and more after their helps.
Crime Scene Recorded
From the above video, can you tell who are the three-people gang and what was stolen?
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